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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155989">And now We roam in Sovereign Woods</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts'>gootarts</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the trap of ignorance, the snare of knowledge [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet, Other, [ushiromiya family voice] therapy? i have no idea what that means, canon +5 years, happy (?) ending. or as reasonably happy an ending you will get with umineko, saku spoilers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 20:07:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155989</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gootarts/pseuds/gootarts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You'd think that Battler would have called before showing up unannounced with his sister in tow, but Sayo supposes some things never change.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Past Sayo Yasuda/Battler Ushiromiya, Sayo (umineko) &amp; Ange (umineko), Sayo Yasuda &amp; Battler Ushiromiya</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>the trap of ignorance, the snare of knowledge [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And now We roam in Sovereign Woods</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>if you're wondering why there's weird capitalization in the title, blame emily dickinson</p><p>also, in case you didn't notice the tag, this fic has saku/last note spoilers! it doesn't *directly* spoil saku, but there's definitely enough in here that you won't be going in blind if you read this first.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>There were things that made sense within the defined boundaries of the universe, and then there were the surprises; a typhoon, a raise, the unveiling of an impossible riddle. If the world were perfectly predictable, everything walking in the footsteps of those gone before, there wouldn’t be anything interesting; no riddles, no challenges, no murder mysteries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or, perhaps, there would still be murder mysteries, they would just be incredibly boring, confined to the same static list of howdunnits with the solution in plain view before a corpse even appeared. If you could see that sort of twist choreographed from a mere sentence, it was too predictable. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mysteries aside, that still didn’t make finding Battler on his apartment’s doorstep any less sudden. Kanon was already shivering from the rain sinking past his wig and into his scalp as the weight of the grocery bags in his hands shifted from side to side in time with his steps. A mere glance told enough; Battler and the young girl next to him didn’t have their clothes clinging to their body from the rain, nor were the suitcases trying their hardest to hide against the wall so much as damp. He couldn’t immediately place a name to the small, young face next to Battler, but those years of babble spoken into a receiver at least gave him an educated guess; Ange. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey.” The tone of Battler’s voice was no less awkward than his posture. Nagano was a good three hours and, depending on which train line you took, several thousand yen away. You didn’t simply drop in on somebody like that without warning, even if they were a friend, and <em>e</em></span>
  <em>
    <span>specially </span>
  </em>
  <span>if the last time you had spoken could be measured in days, not weeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, Kanon?” His normally soft eyes shifted again between Ange and him as that bright, fake grin stayed plastered on his face. “Can we stay here for a bit?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He didn’t know what was stranger, the brazenness or the way his eyes were pleading with him, in a way that made his own confused “aren’t there hotels nearby?” come out not as a barb but as a whimper. There was almost nothing that one Battler Ushiromiya could need in order to come here. The money of a popular, perpetually grinning businessman’s son could easily buy a night at any hotel. Even as they spoke, water was already beginning to pool near their shoes—the landing was never perfectly horizontal—and he knew from experience it had already begun to pool atop Battler's skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, I didn’t know where else to go.” His eyes darted away from Kanon’s gaze to look at nothing in particular. Or, perhaps, they were gazing blankly in the vague direction of the train station, near where the giant hotel with a perpetually blinking ‘VACANT’ sign floating above it laid, impossible to miss even in a sea of neon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Battler still had that sort of charm that was hard to tamp down, even in a situation like this. Ange was still standing stock-still next to his leg, sizing him up like she was about to either dart away or fight. Even if she could easily take a lanky twenty-four-year-old in a brawl, she still was tethered to Battler. He had no doubt from the look in her eyes that if Battler had even the faintest of second thoughts about this request, she would already be dragging him back to the station. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighed as he fished in his pockets for a pair of keys, resting the groceries against the door with his hip. As he opened the door inside to plunk the bags down atop stacks of papers piled upon the kitchen table, he shot a glance back. While Battler thanked him for taking in the suitcases, Ange’s hands almost seemed to dart out towards them as if he were no more than a purse-snatcher on the subway looking for an easy target. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t move when he invited them in, at least not until Battler started placing his shoes one by one, drip by drip, in the foyer’s cubby. It was only when Battler stood up and shot Kanon a look, one that carried the same weight as if he had knelt in thanks on the floor, that she joined them inside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The weather had only begun to turn a half-hour ago. There was no mistaking that they were waiting for him; there was nothing else remotely interesting in the area. As for money? Cost was not, never would be an issue for a man literally worth his weight in gold. He was already laying a gentle hand on Ange’s shoulder, both reassuring and trying to guide her towards Kanon. The exchange of names—Kanon and Ange—told neither of them anything they didn’t already know.  He tried not to catch the whispered ‘how long do we have to stay here?’ from Ange. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Battler dragged his luggage across the floor, Kanon got his first good look at Ange, watching him from the couch as if he were about to attack at any moment. If she were guarded against just him or the world, he couldn’t tell. One bed could not house three, but with the couch and floor, three people staying over was possible. Battler would sleep on the floor, obviously, and he supposed Ange could get the bed, even if his back would kill him later for it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ange, do you want the bed?” Setting up arrangements would guarantee that he would, at least, get the couch. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, thanks!” Battler had the smile plastered back on his face, apparently not yet drawing the dots that it meant he was on the floor. “Wanna try to put your stuff in it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Between the two, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>maybe we can speak openly’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>was shared in a glance, a language only they knew, its grammar refined and polished by the years they had known each other. Ange did not speak that unspoken dialect, but she seemed to get the intention behind those knowing glances as she slowly dragged her suitcase to the next room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second Ange stepped over the threshold and closed the door, it was almost as if somebody had taken a needle to an inflated balloon to Battler’s posture. The whole process was silent, quiet enough that he was able to catch the sound of Ange’s footsteps. One, creaking over the doorstep. Two, on the floor. Three, to the bed. Four, the creaking threshold once again. The two of them shared a glance, then a gesture as Battler grabbed his suitcase and opened the door to Ange, barely a centimeter from the doorknob. He pretended not to notice as he grinned, handing her the suitcase with a smiling ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>can you do your big brother a favor and help unpack my stuff? Please?’</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>He was met only with apprehension and cold words, ones that almost made Battler jump out of his skin. “You said we’d be going somewhere nice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you really want to go to a hotel, we can do that! Kanon is just really nice.” He gestured at Kanon in hopes of some sort of emphasis that maybe she could be reassured by this lonely, tired man. “I’ll get you something for this once we’re back, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the smile from him that night that felt halfway genuine. Maybe that was why she nodded. From his thankfully limited experience with Rudolf, you practically needed a bullshit filter to get through a single day with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks. Sorry for this.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even though he’d been a mere servant, a fly on the wall for years, it still felt awkward being privy to this sort of scene. Even watching them hug felt strange, as if he were not supposed to be there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I at least talk to mom?” She didn’t make any move to disentangle herself from Battler as she asked. Battler only paused, lending a hand to try and push her away. But she stayed there, arms tightening around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe later. We need to unpack, right? We should do that before anything else,” he muttered. “Right?” He shot a pleading glance to Kanon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kanon sighed. “I suppose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Onii-chan.” She gave her own glance back, though by any accounts it was a glare. She seemed smart enough to figure out that unpacking meant acknowledging that she was staying here, at least for the night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re unpacking first, okay.” His voice was commanding as he crossed his arms and shot a look at the two of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was almost painfully obvious how Battler sat down perhaps a little harder than he meant to, the motion sending the mountain of paper on the coffee table scattering like leaves in the wind. As they danced in that nonexistent breeze, taking their time before delicately landing in a mess on the floor, he got a split-second glimpse of panic on the redhead’s face before he heard an equally panicked “sorry!” as he tried to stack it all together once again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the gentle tapping of the rain on the roof slowly gave way to more violent pounding, Kanon knelt down next to him, sorting through the sheets he was handed. As badly as he tried to hide it, Battler’s glance kept drifting from the page numbers to the text scrawled and sprawled out on the page, messy as it was verbose. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is this what you told me you were writing?” There was an almost feeling that the silence was about to be broken the second before he spoke, similar to how the wind would violently kick up moments before a storm. Perhaps it was the mood, or perhaps it was Ange’s bored face, looking down at the two of them. “How’s it going?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could ask the same of you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, hihihihi. I’m more curious about how you’re doing, anyways.” He pretended not to notice the glance he shot to Ange, then to him. Had she not been idly flipping through his manga, she no doubt would’ve gotten the silent message; </span>
  <em>
    <span>not now.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Right now was apparently time for small talk, the kind hashed and rehashed like clockwork, once a week for at least a year. Battler Ushiromiya really was a terrible liar. And Kanon wouldn’t be getting any answers to his questions any time even remotely soon. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m doing well enough. No major changes from when we last spoke.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Unlike you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he said wordlessly, hoping his glare would do the rest of the talking for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s good! That stage crew thing you’re in going well?” He bit back the retort of </span>
  <em>
    <span>we spoke last Wednesday, and I don’t work until Monday, you tell me. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“If there hadn’t been any updates since we last spoke, then there aren’t any new ones, Battler. Stage crew is still perpetually rushing things at the last minute.” He shrugged. “As long as it looks fine to the outside world, it’s not a problem.” There was almost a rule, when he first started; that the interior construction, the backsides, anything could be as convoluted, hideous and terrible as it needed to be; the only thing that mattered was that the audience didn’t see it; the finished product, the kind they showed off, was what was most important. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y…yeah. I know the feeling.” He shot a quick glance back to Ange, to confirm that she was still reading. “You guys are still trucking, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Humans had looks, and then they had Looks; the former was a mere glance, the latter something conveying some thought unspoken, but one both knew without saying a word. The two of them had both been in that room, first blinded by the gold and then burdened by knowledge of sins of the past. Nothing needed to be said, nothing that had already been said or screamed into another’s arms those years ago. Of, course, that kind of Look would only dampen the mood, so Kanon could see the bad joke incoming from a mile away. “So how’s the group dating stuff going for you? If you need help, I can be your wingman!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His reply was immediate and via pillow, flying straight into his face with the most cathartic </span>
  <em>
    <span>thump</span>
  </em>
  <span> he’d ever heard in his life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey, that was a serious offer!” He said, words muffled by pillow. “Ange, be sure to never grow up to be as awful as him!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If she’s not sneaking looks at dirty magazines, she’s already doing better than you were at your age.” All was fair in love and war. If his love life was brought up, that was fair game, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” Battler should’ve known better than to choreograph his throwing so much; he barely had to move to dodge it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Throw it back at him!” He wasn’t sure how he didn’t notice Ange, standing on the couch to bring a pillow over her head as she brought it down hard on Battler’s back. “He’s a stupid brother!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“H-hey!” Battler raised an arm, hoping to block the sudden, unexpected onslaught. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s true!” The side of the pillow smacked Battler with such force that Kanon could hear the ringing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey!” With a huff, he grabbed her, but she managed to wriggle out of his grasp to smack him again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It took a moment for it to process, going from </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’re going to hurt each other</span>
  </em>
  <span> to </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’re wrestling. </span>
  </em>
  <span>That’s right; Battler used to do the same thing with Jessica when they were younger, too. He could only watch as the two played around; both then and now, it would be far too easy for Battler to accidentally hurt him. The nuance, however, was lost on the two of them as they spilled over closer to him, enough so that putting away the groceries sounded like a solid idea. He pretends to not hear Ange’s ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>if you were a smart brother we wouldn’t be here</span>
  </em>
  <span>!’</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had some slightly inkling over what this sudden request was about, but at the same time—it was like a mystery novel that was only half-finished. Something where if you dug into the details to satisfy your curiosity, would only leave you feeling riddled with guilt afterwards. Even if he was starving for answers, Battler was honest and kind in all the ways he wasn’t. He trusted him, trusted Battler far more than he trusted his fridge to feed three people. Even if money wasn’t a concern, supply still was. The supply could probably be tweaked with a bit more rice here, or—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can go out to eat if we need to, Kanon! Don’t worry about it!” Battler’s voice, far too loud, took him by surprise for a moment as Ange wriggled out of his arms. “Where do you want to eat, Ange?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s still raining.” Compared to Battler, he almost had to strain his ears to hear her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can get takeout, then! It’ll be fine. Is there anywhere good nearby, Kanon?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s a curry place nearby.” He nudged his face in the direction of the fridge, to where the menu was hanging from a magnet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Great! What do you want, Ange? I’ll get whatever you want. Even on the dessert menu! And then we can have leftovers tomorrow!” Even his tone of voice felt like plaster, painted sloppily over a decaying wall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Get whatever you want, onii-chan.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay! I’ll be sure to get some for you too, Kanon! Seeya!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a close of the door and a swish of an umbrella, the social glue holding them together broke down. The two of them sized each other up as they sat, not quite sure how to breach this silence with the other. He was positive that Ange could also sense he would rather not make small talk; certain types of introverts could almost sense it in the air. The manga in her hands, plucked from the coffee table, only served to drive home her point, even if he would occasionally notice a wayward glance from above the pages. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was fair enough. It would serve the both of them perfectly fine to go about their business until Battler came back. Maybe if Battler was there to introduce his own strange brand of energy to the room, it would be different, but he was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Battler</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He liked to be loud almost as much as he loved bad jokes and casual, pointless small talk. If he was the light of the room, the two of them were black holes; hidden, quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ange gave another curious look his way, the kind of look where you wanted to stare but didn’t want to seem rude. Those eyes were scarily familiar, almost as if they were the same ones that greeted him every single time he looked in a mirror ever since he was a child. The color was a touch off, but the lonely, isolated expression was the same. If she saw the same in him, he couldn’t tell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re…Battler’s friend, right?” Friend was a weird word to describe him, both encompassing everything yet meaning nothing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose you could say that.” For all those times she spent screaming into his arms, the word wasn’t wrong. Battler was the one who had yelled at the servants as her pathetic form was still processing the shock of Kinzo’s death. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>What happened that day was an open secret within the family, available only for those who chose to ask. But, it seemed nobody cared to directly pry the answers from him. The Ushiromiya family got their millions in the end, figuratively ripped from Kinzo’s dead hands, so why should they care about the servant and the boy who found it? They could speculate all they wanted, never actually never actually putting forth the effort to ask. They could call him whatever they wanted; he would never see their faces again. He didn’t want to ever see their faces again, not after nearly a decade of working for them, seeing their seedy underbellies exposed the second money was brought into the picture. Of the entire family, only the cousins were at least tolerable. In comparison, while he knew little about Ange, he could sense that she was okay. She had, at the very least, mostly gotten away from it all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was taking a good, long look at his face as he sighed and leaned back. “Battler told you about me, didn’t he?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gave a small nod, one he returned with no further elaboration. It was tiring to explain that situation to anybody, let alone a twelve-year-old, and Battler had probably done a reasonable job explaining it to her already, in that case. Probably. Maybe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>…On second thought, maybe it was worth hashing the whole thing out to her later. How were you even supposed to broach the topic out of the blue, with a stranger no less? It had been years since the last time she’d spoken with the cousins in any meaningful way about it. With all but Battler, it had largely been contained to a single conversation, a memento that was examined once before being stored in the attic, never touched again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Approaching Jessica about the topic quickly spiraled into an increasingly confused question-and-answer session. It was like a game of chess where neither of them knew the rules, both of them trying to understand what the other was trying to convey with every move made, every question asked. She didn’t understand why Jessica was asking about leaving one life behind, just how Jessica kept asking questions that danced around the main topic. They’d left the conversation with that awkwardly hanging over their heads, nothing resolved, nothing gained. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sayo didn’t think much of it until a couple years later, when a package with several volumes of Ranma 1/2 showed up to her apartment with a sloppy ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>it’s sorta like this, right???</span>
  </em>
  <span>’ scrawled on the packaging. Those books were now proudly sitting on the bookshelf wedged between Shimada and Wright, one of their members now clutched in Ange’s hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she’d first got the package, she’d looked at the note for what felt like days, writing and revising and writing a response in her head over and over and over again before simply slipping a letter in the mail saying ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>close enough</span>
  </em>
  <span>’. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There was no magical spring, nothing that could restore a body as broken as hers. But in spirit, it was the same; living but a single life despite what the universe threw at you. No separate identities, nothing separating the two but personality and presentation. Shannon, Kanon and Beatrice were two halves of a single soul, intertwined yet different, male yet also female. If nothing else, everything inherited from Kinzo was able to grease the wheels for that, even if it was just a little. That money would be the only reason Kinzo’s children bothered to contact her—even if she had given up that miserable eagle to them, they were still businessmen. Any debt, even if it was given freely, was still leverage; the only point those letters from them served was to ensure that she didn’t want it back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The letters to and from Jessica that followed never discussed money. It would be mentioned in passing, but it was never the subject. The same went for the topic of Sayo; Jessica would sometimes make a nudge to it, but it was never anything more forceful than a gentle prod. Whenever she wore lace and frills as they met up, she would speak of boys and bad jokes. Whenever it was a wig and dark jackets, she would talk about music and bands. When she’d asked, Jessica had only sighed, rubbed her temples, and said something about how, even if she didn’t wholly understand what was happening behind the scenes in a concert, she could still understand and have fun with what was put onstage.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>On the other hand, George had somehow ferreted out the news beforehand, and her explanation, worded and reworded and rehearsed so many times in her head beforehand, had been thrown to the wayside barely a moment in. Instead, it was George taking the lead, speaking words she’d never heard before at the rapid-fire pace of a machine clip. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dysphoria, transsexual, gender-identity disorder. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They were spoken clinically, like he was a coroner dissecting and examining a corpse, not speaking to an old friend. It was like he was discussing those old Sengoku-era fights that Hideyoshi would go on for hours about, even though these were thoughts, feelings, emotions, not the Onin War. When it was your own existence, there were no winners and losers. When it was your own body that ignored your wishes, you couldn’t shape its future with swords and guns like you could with warring shoguns. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she had left the island, it was him that seemed the most disappointed about it. Even when she’d written those few, sparse letters to him later, she had never received a reply. George Ushiromiya had slipped her mind for years, only resurfacing when she received a beautiful letter engraved with a golden eagle. </span>
  <em>
    <span>George and Mayu request your presence in their union, </span>
  </em>
  <span>it said, the letters pressed so deeply into the page that nothing could possibly smooth them out. Battler had mentioned his cousin preparing for it in phone calls, but nothing about her being invited with this letter than smelled of roses and silk. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re technically family</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he said. </span>
  <em>
    <span>And besides, I heard George was really hoping you’d come. </span>
  </em>
  <span>And that was that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ceremony was calm, quaint, and traditional. There was none of the grandeur that she had heard Kinzo forced upon his children’s weddings; the long white gowns were exchanged for kimono, and the chapel for a shrine. It was only at the reception, after the vows were exchanged, that they were able to speak. He’d sighed as he looked off to the side. That time was the first time she had heard him apologize, whispering that he only just learned that his mother had been sifting through his mail before he could get his hands on it. That her letters to him were being plucked from the stem and discarded out of some fear of an ancient, lingering crush rising from the ash. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second and final apology came seconds later, a soft </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘sorry if I was awkward when I was younger</span>
  </em>
  <span>.’ He had wanted to dust off that slate before becoming Eva and Hideyoshi’s official heir, he said. To make amends. And then he was gone, spirited away into the crowd once more.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Maria was the only one who did not press for details. Instead, she had turned the conversation to the demons of paradise lost, bodies ever-changing depending on their mere whim. Their souls were malleable, not chained to the flesh of their birth, able to rend it to forms both large or small, bright or dark, man or woman. They were fallen angels, after all, she said; bound not by the laws of flesh and bone but of will and essence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Between those three, it was her words that rang out the clearest, spoken not from a place of confusion, not from a place of coldness, but from the heart. Even if she had been compared to one, Maria had never spoken of demons from a point of condescension in the years they had known each other. They were not bastions of evil but mere souls that had sinned, souls that could still be redeemed. And, at that moment, perhaps it wasn’t just understanding she was looking for, but for that small shard of hope, too. That reassurance that your life was still your own, that redemption for sins done by your blood was more than a mere fantasy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Kinzo had passed, all of his offspring had split his assets among themselves. Perhaps in the eye of a businessman, Maria’s claim to his books was dwarfed by the masses of gold the others had chosen. But in the eyes of a collector, each and every single one of those first editions that filled the bookshelves was worth far more than any amount of gold could ever buy. Even as a teenager, she was getting letters from professors and scholars who had devoted their entire life to their studies begging, pleading for a mere glimpse inside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she spoke with Sayo, that was not the thing that she celebrated. Instead, what she bragged about was the final and absolute banishment of the black witch. Even though gaining that gold had come with the curse of knowledge for Sayo, for Rosa it came with stability. It had eased the tension of her company’s constant metronome between red and green, bankruptcy and profit. After all, it was easy for a complete fool to blunder about in the world of business, making mistake after mistake. So long as they could pull themselves out of their own self-created mess with their own stacks of 10,000 yen bills, any incompetent human could be a businessman. The only difference between her spending and another fool drunk of their dead father’s riches was a small, almost invisible string hidden among the notes. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Don’t lay your filthy hands on Maria ever again.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Money spoke, and luckily for Maria, Rosa Ushiromiya was more than happy to listen.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Of all the cousins, it was Battler that understood best. It was Battler who had first laid eyes on Kanon, and it was Battler that had given her his personal phone number when she had left the island. He did not have phone calls spanning hours into the night with the other cousins, just as they did not bare their entire souls to him. They would send letters, would speak over the phone or in person on occasion, but it was not a weekly ritual like it was with him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that trust didn’t exactly translate into him trusting him to adequately explain his situation to the eleven-year-old standing in front of him. He sighed as he massaged his temples. If she was reading Ranma and had questions about him, he could at least default to that. “If you have any questions, just let me know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of all the possible replies to that, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>why won’t onii-chan let me call mom?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” was not the question he was expecting from her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean Kyrie-san, right?” He’d never formally met Kyrie Sumadera, only heard about her in hushed, scared whispers. Kyrie may have been her legal name, but her most common one, whispered under angry breath, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>damn yakuza</span>
  </em>
  <span>. The damn yakuza, the one who made off like a bandit with Rudolf’s portion of the inheritance. The damn yakuza, the one who Rudolf cheated on. Of all the people Kanon wouldn’t want to deal with, Kyrie Sumadera was at the top of the list, circled three times and underlined in red pen. His pause before prying about the issue was only natural.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you want to call her?” His mind started backtracking again, trying to place an accurate reason for this visit a little harder now. Of the laundry list of all the reasons Kyrie could be involved in this, none of them sounded even remotely good.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her and that lady are fighting.” He didn’t ask who she was referring to; Battler’s weekly rants over the phone, about </span>
  <em>
    <span>she doesn’t even use her damn name</span>
  </em>
  <span>, were more than enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’ve been fighting ever since before Battler was born. I don’t think it’s anything new.” Battler running off was definitely something new, but Ange didn’t need to know that. When those old arguments started bubbling to the surface, he would spend </span>
  <em>
    <span>hours</span>
  </em>
  <span> on the phone ranting about it, pausing only to catch his breath or choke back a sob. It was an old, familiar tango, one they had danced in step to for years. No matter if it was him or Battler leading, it had never gotten so bad that either of them had suddenly run away like this. Anything that progressed beyond that normal venting was worrying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was just as concerning as Ange’s thousand-yard stare. “Is that why you’re here?” She’d put the manga down, bookmarked with her pinky finger as he asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They weren’t even yelling. Only Battler was.” Perhaps she didn’t quite understand, but Battler was loud, while the women surrounding him were silent, but deadly. The noise they did not make spoke volumes more about them than the sound they did. But for Ange, Kyrie was probably a good mother, not the imposing yakuza, not the one whose only child was a pawn, put on the board for the sole purpose of keeping Rudolf close to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By leaving, he was probably thinking that he could get the two of them to stop fighting quicker. Parents normally pay a lot more attention once their kids get involved.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>It would also keep the two safe from Kyrie</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he mentally added.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess.” Her gaze flitted down to the manga once more, clearly not convinced as she left silence in her wake. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes things work out better if you give them space. Those three started the fight, and only those three can resolve it. If you have outside parties breathing down your neck, you just get mad and don’t listen at all.” If Ange was anything like either of them, she should have been jumping for joy at the mere prospect of getting away from the family for a little while. Even as a kid, he’d always dreamed of running away from the family to some isolated alcove only he and Battler knew of. Of passing the time not in hours but in words, pages, volumes, the day only ending when it was too dim to make out the letters. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess,” she echoed yet again, her eyes not even looking up from the manga. He could recognize a lost cause when he saw one, so he sighed and sunk deeper into the couch to close his eyes, only opening them when he heard muffled footsteps. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are all of these yours?” Ange asked, kneeling in front of the cluttered tabletop, fingers picking up an edge as if it was a particularly disgusting fish. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He felt his brow knitting furrows in his forehead. “If you’re not going to respect them, don’t touch them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can respect them.” Trust a kid to want to do the exact opposite of what you tell them too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then hold them properly when you read them.” She shot him a glare, as if to say </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can do that very well, thank you very much, </span>
  </em>
  <span>as she picked the first sheath of paper up. Her eyes traced the first paragraph before she spoke, as if to prove him that she was worthy of such an honor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A dark and stormy night, a stranger.” Her eyes narrowed as she spoke, voice dropping just a little—to give the right impression of the occasion—before tapering off to squat squarely in front of the table. She had the exact same uncomfortable posture as Battler did when she read, feet tucked underneath her. Like him, she was silent, undeterred by intimidating kanji or metaphor as she meticulously plodded through the pages. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As the pat-pat-pat of the rain continued to its own beat, Kanon picked up a page to edit. A letter crossed out there, a line rewritten here to sound more natural, his lips mouthing the dialogue as his fingers traced over it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing he’d been working on was sort of a book, sort of a play, its exact nature nebulous even to its writer. It had started out as a rant to somebody or other about modern mysteries, fueled by a suggestion to actually write one. So that was what had happened, the pages metastasizing over the years into the jumbled pile of paper on the table. Maybe, once it was done, he could sell it to some publisher. Maybe. In all honesty, it felt like it was going to sit there, perpetually unfinished as the page count crept larger and larger. He had no pressing need for money, nor did it really matter if his name was known to the world. What mattered more was writing this story, inking those small shards of his soul into the paper. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words could only communicate so much; it was like tossing a fragile bottle into the depths of the sea and praying that it wouldn’t break before washing up upon a beach. But then again, almost every kid had thought of throwing their own message in a bottle out to sea; that miracle of their survival only made the ones that were found by a stranger </span>
  <em>
    <span>special</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anybody could skim the pages of a murder mystery, but just any person could pinpoint the most important part, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Not the why of the culprit, but the </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> of why it was written. The author needed to pay rent, yes, but there was always an underlying motive behind that siren song, drawing the writer closer and closer towards the scent of death. Perhaps it was the allure of the puzzle, or a wish for justice. Or perhaps it was just an obsession with death, with bodies torn apart, throats slit, the thoughts flashing past your eyes all hours of day. Though, perhaps it was simply a desire to tear back the veil on the ugliest parts of the world, to expose the rotting corpse of human nature. Because at the end of the day—</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>please, would you call me ‘father?’</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>—Humans needed reminders of their sin, lest they forget it and allow it to happen again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A human listening in to another’s woes could only carry a tale in their mortal forms for so long before it disappeared into ashes. His bookshelves were littered with tales from those long dead, but you could still feel the pieces of souls between the pages. You could sit in an empty apartment for hours, listening only to the pitter-patter of rain on the rooftop, never truly alone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>While it didn’t have the level of polish the many of the great authors had, at the very least it seemed that Ange was engrossed. At least, she was until the door opened and Battler appeared. One hand was shaking the umbrella in large stabbing motions before dumping the food in the other hand onto the table. Despite the rain soaking him to the bone, there was a grin on his face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The food was a siren to Ange, calling her close as she watched the other two load up their plates first. Despite a sort of strange, awkward tension filling the air, they were silent as they started eating. However, finishing the food off was a different story. “Do you know when they’ll be done fighting, onii-chan?” She looked up from her untouched plate to a man who began stuffing his face the second she opened her mouth. He held up a hand as he slowly, deliberately chewed his way through it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Smooth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You called them on the way back, didn’t you?” She was still staring, her brows knitted together and her eyes not moving a millimeter from Battler. Kanon had wondered about the change jingling in his pocket and the strange amount of time it must have taken to find the restaurant, but hadn’t thought much of it. Especially given how Battler only piled more food on his plate at the question, like if he screwed around long enough she’d drop the issue entirely. But, instead of silence, he instead got another sharp “onii-chan!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He gave a couple lonely, pathetic glances before he finally spoke, the tone a complete contrast of the room’s mood. “Oh, hihihi, sorry about that.” He gave another glance around, but only saw two sets of eyes hungry for information. “It’s complicated. They’re going to be getting other people involved.” Kanon raised an eyebrow to that, but held his tongue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We can get a hotel nearby after tonight,” he continued, shoving even more noodles into his mouth. Even thinking of how much originally was on his plate and how much had gone into his belly made Kanon nauseous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So we can see mom?” Battler was chewing so slowly that it almost looked painful, so Kanon answered in his stead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have school on Monday, right? It probably won’t be for another day, at least.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to see mom.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll get to see mom,” Battler said around a mouthful of food. Kanon nudged him, whimpering a sharp </span>
  <em>
    <span>swallow first. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He only snickered. “It’s not going to be a problem for you, Ange. I just….wanted to get the two of us away for a bit.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“C’mon, don’t look at me that way. Look, we get to see each other more now! You’re always complaining about that, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess,” she muttered, eyes looking down at her plate. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See? It’ll be fine!” He smiled as his plates clattered into the sink. After checking his posture—hunched, hand subtly pressed to his chest as he retreated to lie on the couch, Kanon thought better of lecturing him to wash his own dishes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turned on the tap with his empty plate in the other hand, but didn’t move to pick up Battler’s plates. He dug his own grave, so he would get to lie in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Promise me that it’ll be okay, onii-chan?“ She was alone at the table now, her soft voice barely carrying itself across the room as she spoke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I, yeah.” He paused as he sat up, eyes meeting. “Yeah. I can’t guarantee. but I’ll try my hardest. Okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She was silent for a moment, eyes scanning for any sign of an untruth as she walked over to the couch. But eventually she nodded, though not before yawning. It was almost like a cat, her gums rearing back to show off all her teeth. And in that moment, it reminded Kanon of how late it was. For her, that was; he was a night owl, but for a grade-school kid, it was a different story. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll sleep here. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable, Ange!” Battler grinned as he patted her head, ruffling and messing up her hair. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gave some sound halfway between a sigh and a frown as she tried to swat his hand away with a sharp “</span>
  <em>
    <span>onii-chan</span>
  </em>
  <span>!”, something he knew from experience would only make it worse. Battler 180 centimeters tall meant many things, chief among them that he was never on the receiving end of unwanted head pats. Hell, he’d only stopped with Kanon when he accidentally did it when he was wearing a wig; a sharp yelp of pain was thankfully all it took for him to shelve that habit between the two of them. But that was between friends. For siblings, it a was no holds barred battle royale as Ange whacked him hard on the side as payback. What went around, came around. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You messed it up! Now it’s almost as stupid as yours!” She huffed as she tore her fingers through her hair in an effort to fix it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Almost? No human on earth can hold a candle to that mop of hay,” Kanon added. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You two are awful!” Battler pouted his lower lip, mock cowering as he tried to shield his hair from view. “Leave! Leave my sight!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If it means I no longer have to see your hair, that’s fine with me.” With a snicker, Ange followed him into the bedroom, trying her hardest not to laugh. That was good, at least; even if Battler had his issues, he could always be counted on to lighten the mood.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shook his head. “Lost cause.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ange nodded alongside him. “Lost cause,” she echoed as she swapped the hair ties in her hair for a toothbrush in her hand, ran her fingers through her hair with the free one once again in an effort to contain Battler’s damage. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If you need to, you can use the stuff in my bathroom,” he said, plucking his own stuff out to dump on the kitchen table. From the giant bedspread cocoon nestled upon his bed, he grabbed a couple blankets to dump unceremoniously on the main room’s couch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Battler, thankfully doing the dishes, didn’t seem to notice as he pulled off his wig, running fingers through the strands of brown hair underneath as they were freed from their hot, itchy prison. The wig was placed gently on a rack as he picked up the nightclothes underneath it. The redhead </span>
  <span>only needed a heads-up before glancing away, though it wasn’t like there was anything interesting there. Just old scars, so faded you could barely see them. As he buttoned the top, he heard the sound of running water. Or more accurately, the sound of Ange using the very last drops of the conditioner that he forgot to restock. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sighed as Battler started pulling together some of his blankets after picking up a couple of the warmer ones for himself.“So.” With a sweep of his arms, Kanon’s blanket rippled out, covering the sofa. “Why are you here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Battler, with all his wealth, was stupidly transparent, an open book. If hotels were easier and offered less fuss, if his cousins were closer to him than Kanon, it must have to do with specifically wanting him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Battlery paused in the middle of rolling out a bedsheet, sighing as he looked up to the ceiling. “I was doing stuff for mom, and—okay, so I never was into that blood type horoscope stuff, so I didn’t pay it too much attention, but I at least know my blood type, right? It’s O.” His voice strained under the weight of the words as he continued, opening his eyes to peer over his shoulder, straight at Kanon. “I was going through a couple of mom’s documents for her, and I saw a blurb with her blood type. She’s type AB.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isn’t O recessive? It’s impossible to have an O-type child if one of the parents is type AB.” Even if he knew what was coming, his brain still fought against it, as if the conclusion his brain jumped to wasn’t any more outlandish than what happened to his mom. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If the words sunk into Battler, he didn’t show it on his face. “I didn’t get it, but I looked into it. Dad’s type O, so that checks out. But I was confused, until I was talking with Ange. She’s a teenage girl, so she’s really into those blood type things.”He drew a deep breath, the kind reserved for saying something in one quick breath, forced out before you could regret it. “She told me that her aunt and her grandma were both type O.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kanon let out a low hiss through his teeth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I…talked with mom. She said that her and Kyrie both conceived on the same day.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His heart started slowly but surely speeding up as Battler kept talking. But it didn’t matter that the blood beginning to hammer in his ears was muffling the words; just by that phrase, he could already piece together the rest of the story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And as I talked, it kept going, and it turned out…dad lied to me.” The words came out in a single breath, his fingers wrapped around the couch pillow as he voice lowered to an angry growl. Almost instinctively, Kanon’s fingers followed suit, nails burrowing into the sofa cushions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>His lips were curled back in a snarl, the kind that he’d only seen once, on that day that felt eons ago as they were almost blinded by gold. That question she’d only spoken to Battler—</span>
  <em>
    <span>what’s wrong with me?</span>
  </em>
  <span>—and its answer—bubbling to the surface. She’d been shocked at first, hunched over Kinzo as his mind raced. But as he figured it out, his figured stood over hers and started </span>
  <em>
    <span>roaring</span>
  </em>
  <span> at them, screaming </span>
  <em>
    <span>why?</span>
  </em>
  <span> over and over again like a typhoon pounding at the rocks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At that time, he didn’t fully grasp how Battler could be so much more enraged about it than he was. All he’d felt at the time was numbness, like his body was more a clay marionette being piloted than a living, breathing thing. He couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything but take in the information crashing down onto his head. But Battler? His screaming </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt</span>
  </em>
  <span>, hurt not just in his eardrums, but in a way that cut past that numbness to strike at the soul. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hearing that voice scream those feelings buried under layers of shock in his stead was the only thing in that room that made him feel </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span>, that had anything rivaling the weight of those ten tons of gold.  He needed that then, just as Battler needed it now as he narrowed his eyes, curled his lips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s a heartless bastard.” He spat out those words as best he could, the rage and bile rising from within his throat to cut through his teeth. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah.” His gaze darted over to the bedroom door, to strain his ears for a second to see if Ange had noticed, before he slowly looked back, his voice quiet. “He….].he did that. My entire life. Never even thought twice. Every day he </span>
  <em>
    <span>lied</span>
  </em>
  <span>. All because he wanted to marry mom instead of Kyrie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even without hearing them with his ears, he could hear the </span>
  <em>
    <span>help me make sense of this </span>
  </em>
  <span>in his heart</span>
  <em>
    <span>. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They are two of a kind now, lied to about the blood in their veins. That was why he is here. Nobody else really knows how it feels, that every word you breathed is a lie. That the blood flowing through your veins is tainted by falsehood, that every breath you took just furthered that untruth. When that sort of thing happened to you, all you wanted to do was scream, not into the void but into something that would scream back </span>
  <em>
    <span>I agree</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s why you left.” He clamped down a hand on Battler’s shoulder, fingers digging into the muscle and bones underneath. Wordlessly, but not without the soft sound of a choked sob, Battler pulled that hand, and then the rest of the body it was attached to, close. He could feel the heat of his face against his chest as he pressed a hand to his back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If he did that to you, then he deserves whatever comes to him,” he growled, pulling in as much of Battler as he could. The redhead only made a noise that sounded halfway between anger and pain, but he could feel warm, familiar tears start to gather on his chest. It was just like when they were younger, telling each other their dumb kid problems. Shannon would nod along when it was Asumu and grades, while Battler would lighten the mood when it was anything else. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For all his bravado, Battler’s heart was always open. When he was at the island, it was not the blonde witch who would coax her into bearing her soul—it was him. For all the magic she could cast, Battler’s spell on her was stronger. Beatrice couldn’t hold her in her arms, nor could she wish for anything more than platitudes. While Beatrice could only listen to long rambles about all the other girls growing up, Battler would pat her on the shoulder and an awkward, blushing comment about how she was still cute. </span>
</p><p><span>When she’d whispered a question to the universe, an angry, scared </span><em><span>what the hell</span></em> <em><span>is wrong with me</span></em><span>, he’d whispered back </span><em><span>I don’t know</span></em><span>. There was no fidgeting like there was with the other servants, no </span><em><span>I’m sure you’ll be fine</span></em><span> or dodged questions, trying to downplay the strangeness, the </span><em><span>wrongness</span></em><span> of what was happening. </span></p><p>
  <span>And when she asked why she was born a girl at all, why she was given this body that didn’t even fit, he’d given an awkward, jilted </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’d make a pretty cool guy</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She didn’t know </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span> that single sentence made her feel like that, but it kept repeating in her mind over and over, a broken record whose tune was somehow dizzyingly beautiful. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’d make a cool guy. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>When she’d asked to borrow some of his old clothes, he brought an entire suitcase to the island, no questions asked. No questions either when she’d asked to wear it, only a bad joke about poking those pads she wore as Yoshiya Yasuda stood in front of the mirror for the first time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was just the kind of man Battler was. Ridiculous, dumb, but…also the kind of man Sayo wouldn’t trade for the world. Especially when he was like this, broken down and screaming his throat raw at the world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hate him.” He almost didn’t hear the words, barely audible above Battler’s deep, stiff breaths. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If he did that to you, then I hate him, too.” He’d heard those whispers of rumor for years. Those women gave Rudolf their hearts, and he smashed them to pieces. They whispered promises to them, ones to them meant the world and to him were mere empty words. It was that sort of thing he hated the most about Rudolf. Not the carelessness, nor the stupid jokes; it was him treating hearts as disposable, things he would say were valuable, beautiful, and in the same breath discard with the bedsheets. For all his faults, Battler had held her bitter, confused, unsure heart as delicately as a bird’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re a better man than he ever could be,” he whispered. A better man than his entire male line, its disgusting blood flowing down and dripping, chilling and rotting the body from inside out; the best you could do was cut off the arm entirely. Even if you ripped off that dying arm, you couldn’t rip out every drop of blood from your body. It was with that blood shared between them that those old memories—stupid kid chatter, a stolen kiss (a </span>
  <em>
    <span>first</span>
  </em>
  <span> kiss, even more precious) were forever tainted. That particular part of fate was immutable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In that way, even if it was biologically impossible for him to repeat Kinzo’s sins, he was always watching himself. In case that streak of white in his hair would grow into a mop of white hair, or for some other small, inescapable sign that he was treading down that same terrible, twisted path. Even then, those feelings for Battler still fluttered in his chest, just a little; barely noticeable but still there. You could not simply rip out your heart, after all, even if every beat of it only pumped more guilt into you. Battler deserved better than a fetid, cursed love. And despite cursing everything this body he was born into, so did Sayo.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You could not ask love to simply vanish without a trace, just as you could not rip out your own heart. You could only ask it to wane, for your heart to light another flame as the original one slowly burned down to a mere spark. So that love had faded with time, withering away at the corners until only which was in front of them remained while he held the redhead in his arms. It was that heart that told him that Battler’s hair was soft, that his body was warm, and that even though those feelings jabbed into his heart, that Battler still needed him in this moment. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks,” he whispered, not moving his head from Kanon’s chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kanon said nothing in return. After all, he was only here today because Battler did the same for him those years ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was quiet for a couple moments; no sound, no motion. Just the two of them, sharing the same universe of sorrow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, as they moved to turn off the lights, he glimpsed Battler’s face. His eyes were red and puffy, but his mouth was upturned in the first genuine smile he'd seen that day. </span>
</p>
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